Nine: The Unheavenly Creatures.
NERV Field HQ, Iwanami, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan.
July 24th, 2015.
The cool pre-dawn light crept across the floor of the buzzing command center. The sleepy song of the dawn chorus drifted in through the windows, serenading the small army of NERV staff huddled around computer screens and steaming mugs of coffee.
"Ikari's not going to Tokyo-2. He hasn't crossed any of the roadblocks out of the valley."
Misato glowered at the CCTV feed, absently answering the spectacled technician .
"Or he isn't taking the roads. Plenty of woods between here and the city."
"If he is, we'll have a hell of a time finding him," Commander Claude Allard mused. "We can't shut down the capital for one boy."
Misato leaned over the techie's shoulder and pressed a button on the console. The camera stream blinked out, replaced by the familiar TK8 News intro. "He could be going anywhere. The only place we know is the Maruyama house—"
"And we have that surveilled," Claude interrupted. "A full squadron of Section 2 agents are camped out down the street, and another is watching from the air. Not even a stray cat could get through."
He picked up the desk phone and punched in a number. "Henry? Yeah, I heard. The chec—what's that? They saw him?" Misato dropped the stack of files on the startled techie's desk, covering the distance to the Commander's station in a dozen long strides. Claude covered the receiver with his hand, turning to Misato.
"We know where he's going."
Misato pushed an ashtray under Ritsuko's hand. The doctor absently tapped the ash from her cigarette, frowning at the printed report.
"Nagoya? Who does he know in Nagoya?".
"Nobody," Misato replied. "Yui had a sister there, but she moved to France a few years back."
Ritsuko took a long draw. The glowing tip flared, curls of tobacco wilting into ribbons of ruddy flame.
"There's a train station in Nagoya," she said. "Line goes straight to Osaka."
Misato shook her head. "There's even less reason to go there. Not enough money to catch the bullet train, no papers to leave the country, and he has nowhere to stay."
Misato pulled up a map on the screen, zooming in to the southern portion of Honshu. Ritsuko pulled up a chair beside her. The familiar scent of tobacco and catnip wafted across the impromptu cubicle. Ritsuko prodded the screen with a capped pen. "The report came in from Suyama…" She drew the tip across the screen to a sprawling city. "If he's going to Nagoya, the fastest route is by bus."
"Shinji's smart enough to know we're following him. He won't take public transport until he's out of Kanagawa…"
Misato's eyes drifted east from Nagoya, falling onto the patchwork ruins of a flooded city. She turned slowly to Ritsuko. "What if he isn't going to Nagoya? The same road passes near—"
"Shizuoka? The whole city flooded after Second Impact—there's nothing there for him."
"Exactly. Nobody's watching the Drowned Coast anymore. He could disappear for good in the shanties, or pay a smuggler to take him out of the country."
Ritsuko made a noise of disbelief.
"It doesn't make sense. You live with Ikari; he doesn't do anything on his own. For him to suddenly bolt, spend two days running through the woods dodging Section 2, then make a beeline for that cesspit? It isn't in his character."
Misato frowned. "Then what? He's heading for the coast, we know that. Shinji covered nearly thirty kilometers in a day, so he's hitching a ride from someone. Do you think he's being manipulated?"
"I don't know. This whole thing stinks of that bastard Lor—" She caught herself, but too late.
Misato kept her eyes fixed on the map, not trusting her poker face enough to make eye contact. Kiel Lorenz…wasn't he at Gendo's funeral? If he got to Shinji then he's in serious trouble.
She shot a furtive look at Ritsuko, who was studiously sketching with a perfectly blank face. The scientist held the thin paper against the screen, overlaying a set of lines over the digital map.
Misato peered closer at the diagram. "What am I looking at?"
"These are all the suspected nodes on the Shizuoka Network—human traffickers. If someone's trying to get Shinji out of the country, they'll need to move him to one of these points." She took the page down, drew a point and a dotted line, and put it back up. "This is where they sighted Shinji last. If he keeps moving this direction…"
Misato traced the line with her finger to a labeled dot.
"He'll go to Fujinomiya." She tapped a barred line connecting it to Shizuoka. "If they get him to Shizuoka, they can take him downshore—"
"They don't need to. There's an airfield in Fujinomiya. Probably a jet sitting on the runway as we speak. Shinji could be there by tomorrow." And gone forever by the day after.
Misato jumped up, flinging her coat over her shoulder. "Then we need to be there today. Brief the Commander." Ritsuko nodded grimly, gathering up her papers.
"Are you going to send Section 2?"
Misato nodded. "I'm leading the retrieval team. We have one shot to get Shinji back."
SEELE Apostolic Palace, Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany.
July 24th, 2015.
Kaworu wandered down the halls of the palace, glancing idly at the expensive oil paintings and silk tapestries lining the walls. He stepped into the service passages, then down into the basement. The tunnels down here were bare concrete painted with directions in German. He opened a final door and emerged into a rather roughly furnished hallway with three doors on one side. Two of the doors were open and dark, but voices wafted from behind the third.
The nameplaque read "Asuka Shikinami, Reserve Pilot #2."
Kaworu smiled. There they are. He knocked on the door, heard the muffled "come in," and slipped inside. The inside of the room was papered in posters of fighter aircraft and model rifles; the wall over the bed was decorated with a shelf holding several ballistic helmets, a collection of spent shells ranging from pistol rounds to anti-tank cannons, and scale models of a MiG-29.
Two white haired teens sat on the bed, drawing on a sketchpad. They looked up at him with identical crimson eyes set in milk-pale faces. The boy spoke first.
"Ah, Kaworu's here. How'd the meeting go?"
Kaworu winced. "Not well. Not well at all."
The girl interjected. "Did you get them to deploy us?"
"Well, not exactly…"
The boy cocked his head to the side. "What did they say?"
"I didn't get a chance to raise the issue. Mr. Ikari got ticked off and called me a 'catamite', then Mr. Estrada pulled a gun on him."
The albino boy burst into laughter. The girl elbowed him sharply in the ribs.
"Get a grip, Shinji." As always, Kaworu felt an uncomfortable chill at the name.
He's Shinji Lorenz. Not the boy I am destined to meet, only a copy. A freak like me.
Shinji finally got himself under control, wiping his eyes. "I can see Tora-chan is really going classical with his insults. You know, he's going to be your grandfather-in-law if you end up getting with Shinji-kun." Don't remind me. How a crank like that could be related to Shinji…then again his father was Gendo.
The girl scowled. "I'd like to get my hands on that bastard sometime. Every time I get in eyeshot he starts bitching about how I'm wasting training time. Makes me wanna punt him off the roof."
"At least he uses your name," Shinji muttered. " 'Shikinami' is better than 'annoyed grunt.' He tripped me with his cane the other day. He pretended to apologize but that old git did it on purpose, I'm sure."
She patted his shoulder, clearly struggling not to laugh. "I'll kick him one in the balls for you, don't worry."
Kaworu got a little closer and peered at the sketchpad. A rough world map had been scrawled on the paper, cut up by a net of red lines into sections. He looked up at the other two. "What's this?"
The creature wearing Shinji's face grinned. "We're dividing up the world. After I'm in charge, I'll give you two a cut. Asuka's claimed the United States—"
"And Japan," she cut in. "I'm taking Japan too. You can have the rest of Asia."
"We're still haggling over the details," Shinji continued. "That reminds me, you haven't picked your share. Borneo's a nice place for a palace, if you want it. Hell, I'll throw in the rest of Indonesia as a present."
Kaworu shook his head. "I don't want to rule anywhere. Just give me the real Shinji after your victory and I'll be happy."
The other boy's smile faded.
"I am the real Shinji," he said. "I'm smarter than Ikari, stronger than Ikari, faster than Ikari. I was born to conquer the four corners of the Earth. I am the Chakravartin, the Malik al-Amlak, the destined—"
Asuka poked Shinji's arm. "Stop talking like a Bond villain, it's making me sick."
And that's why you aren't the real Shinji.
Shinji smiled wryly. He rested a hand on Kaworu's thigh, and Kaworu had to resist the urge to leap back off the bed.
"Why not pick me instead, Kaworu-kun? I'm everything dear Ikari is and more. There's nothing I can't give you—" He was interrupted by an explosive punch to the solar plexus. He doubled over, wheezing. Asuka shoved the Nephilim off the bed.
"Shut up, idiot Shinji! You don't get to have a damned harem, you understand? I'll kill you myself!" Shinji nodded from the floor, gasping for breath. Asuka kicked him in the back once more for good measure. "Fucking moron…" she muttered under her breath. "Sorry, Kaworu. I'll deal with my stupid boyfriend. Don't you have another meeting or something to go to?" He recognized the dismissal and left, stepping delicately over Shinji's arm.
He walked down to the hall to his own room. The inside was sparsely decorated: a table, two chairs, a bookshelf filled with folders of sheet music and bulky volumes of Goethe. He flopped down on the neatly made bed, staring up at the popcorn ceiling. It would be nice to have a window. The room was lit well enough, but the dry, stale basement air desiccated everything; Kaworu recalled a particularly unpleasant find on Shinji's part, a rat that died in the vents and dried into a mummy.
I've never seen anyone get quite that green . When Asuka was done retching she beat him like a carpet-seller's donkey . I got a few wallops too for not warning her before she came in.
A knock sounded on the door. Kaworu raised his head.
"Come in."
The door opened and Kiel Lorenz walked in.
"Kaworu, are you doing alright? What Apostle Ikari said—"
"He didn't hurt my feelings or anything, sir. I've heard worst." Lorenz paused for a moment, before apparently deciding to take a more direct tack.
"Ikari Shinji might be joining us soon." Kaworu sat up suddenly, and Lorenz's eyes gleamed.
"He's coming here?"
"If everything goes to plan, by the day after tomorrow. That's where you come in."
He pulled a packet from under his jacket, offering it to Kaworu. "I want you to come with me and GEIST to fetch him. He's in a bad place right now, and having a boy his age with him could help smooth the transition." Kaworu flipped through the packet, pausing on a color photograph tucked between the pages. It captured a boy in a school uniform, with dark hair and bright blue eyes. He had apparently been photographed by surprise: he was turned away from the camera, looking back over his shoulder.
After a moment, he shut the packet and stared at the cover. The SEELE emblem was emblazoned on the page, an inverted triangle and seven eyes inscribed with an apple and serpent. He traced the embossed motto below it. " 'Überm sternenzelt richtet Gott, wie wir gerichtet.' "
" 'As God judges above the starry heavens, we judge.' There is no force of the world that can prevail against our righteousness." The Seventeenth Angel felt Lorenz lay a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Soon, Kaworu. Soon, all our dreams will come true."
Terminal Dogma, Tokyo-3 Special Administrative District, Japan.
July 24th, 2015.
Akagi Ritsuko flipped a switch and the computer room flickered to life. Outside the glassless windows of the bunker, orange waves lapped against a concrete shore. An eerie orangish glow lit the steaming air, warm as fevered blood. She wiped sweat from her brow with an equally sodden sleeve. It's not supposed to get this hot. Is Lilith running a fever?
The phone rang; Ritsuko hesitated, let it ring a few times, and finally picked up.
"Dr. Akagi?"
"In the flesh." She grabbed a file out of an ancient filing cabinet and stowed it in the bag. "Now, let's talk business, Chairman. First of all, we won't give you Shinji."
"Why not? He's more useful to our plan he—"
"Because I say so," she snapped. "I won't let your Nuremberg freakshow get their hands on a pilot."
A long pause, then he answered. "You've gotten sentimental, Doctor. No matter. Either way that matter will settle itself in short order. Now, onto your proposal?"
"I'll help with your scenario, on two conditions."
"You aren't exactly in a position to make demands, are you?" The man's voice was clearly amused now. Akagi gritted her teeth.
"First, I want Gendo's killer. Alive."
"We'll deliver him to you unharmed, you can do what you please with him. And the second condition?" Ritsuko pushed open the door.
The churning orange sea stretched to the horizon, heavy steam hiding the walls and roof of the cavern. In the far distance, a colossal shadow rising from the midst of the sea marked the foot of the tremendous cross; the monstrous figure pinned to it bled LCL waterfalls from five wounds; a mask with seven eyes shrouded her face.
"I want…I want to be put into Unit-01. I want to join him."
"Ah, the things we do for the people we—"
"Shut up. You don't know anything about love, you psychopath."
The man's voice fell to a whisper. "I know more than you could possibly imagine, Fraulein. Ikari Gendo wasn't the first to fall in the pursuit of our Eden." His tone hardened. "I await the first transmission, Doctor. Do not be late." The phone went dead.
Ritsuko stowed the phone in the pocket of her coat and gazed up at the creature's alien visage. Maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like the beast's terrible eyes followed her from behind the iron mask. Soon enough, you will be free of that cross.
"I can't wait to see you again, my Commander."
Notes:
PREVIEW:
Yo, Ryoji here with your preview. Battle in Fujinomiya! Shinji's pursuit turns violent. Misato is torn between loyalty and conscience. SEELE and HERZ take to the battlefield and leave devastation in their wake. A terrible weapon unleashed, a boy trapped in the crossfire, and a hunt completed. Next time on Herz und Seele, Chapter Ten: Race to Shizuoka! Don't worry, there'll be plenty of fanservice!